THE NEW YORKER, M AY 21, 2018
33
COMMENT
BAD BETS
On January , , John Limbert
and fifty-one other American dip-
lomats were taken to Tehran's interna-
tional airport on a bus, after being held
in captivity by young revolutionaries
for four hundred and forty-four days.
The diplomats were all blindfolded.
"Listening to the motors of the plane
warming up---that was the sweetest
sound I've ever heard," Limbert recalled
last week.The Air Algérie crew waited
to uncork the champagne until the flight
had left Iranian airspace. The next day,
however, the Times cautioned, "When
the celebrations have ended, the hard
problems unresolved with Iran will re-
main to be faced."
That's still true, nearly four decades
later. Since Iran's revolution, six
U.S. Presidents have traded arms, built
back channels, and dispatched secret
envoys in an e ort to heal the rupture.
"It's a bad divorce, like 'The War of the
Roses,' " Vali Nasr, the Iranian-born
dean of Johns Hopkins University's
School of Advanced International Stud-
ies, said. "Neither side has ever gotten
over it." Finally, in , Barack Obama
led six major world powers into the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,
the most significant nonproliferation
pact in more than a quarter century.
The deal limited but did not eliminate
Iran's nuclear capabilities in exchange
for relief from some but not all puni-
tive U.S. economic sanctions.
On May th, Donald Trump, in his
biggest foreign-policy decision to date,
withdrew from the accord and reim-
posed sanctions, saying, "This was a
horrible, one-sided deal that should
have never, ever been made." In a high-
risk gamble, the President is basically
betting on the Islamic Republic's de-
mise. The United States has now vio-
lated its obligation; Iran, according to
ten International Atomic Energy
Agency reports, has not. Tehran is not
likely to go back to the negotiating table
under these circumstances. The credi-
bility of the White House, the coun-
try's commitment to diplomacy as an
alternative to war, the strength of Amer-
ica's alliances, and the mechanisms to
limit nuclear proliferation have all been
deeply damaged.
This uncertainty comes at a partic-
ularly perilous moment, as Trump pre-
pares for a summit with the North Ko-
rean leader, Kim Jong Un, in Singa-
pore, on June th. Unlike Iran, North
ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
Korea has nuclear weapons and inter-
continental ballistic missiles capable of
reaching the United States.Trump will
be lucky to get a deal as straightfor-
ward or as verifiable as the one that he
has just abandoned.
The fallout was immediate: Britain,
France, and Germany rebuked Trump
and vowed to honor the deal. China and
Russia---the other co-sponsors---will
stick to it, too. The European Union is
also considering legislation to nullify
the e ects of Trump's sanctions on E.U.
companies for engaging in transactions
with Iran. Tensions between Israel and
Iran threatened to turn Syria's civil war
into a regional conflagration. For the
first time, Iranian Revolutionary Guards
in Syria fired rockets into Israel. Israel
responded with a barrage of air strikes
on Iran's extensive infrastructure across
the border. And Saudi Arabia said that
it would seek its own nuclear weapon
if Tehran resumed any aspect of a pro-
gram aimed at developing either peace-
ful nuclear energy or a bomb.
Trump has condemned the accord---
and Iran---since the start of the
campaign. But his new foreign-policy
team, assembled during the past two
months, seems to be pursuing a con-
frontational course. John Bolton, the na-
tional-security adviser, and Mike Pompeo,
the Secretary of State, championed re-
gime change in Tehran before they joined
the Administration. No opposition group
has seriously challenged the theocracy
from the outside. But, almost inexplica-
bly, Bolton and Rudolph Giuliani, who
is now one of the President's lawyers,
were among a number of Americans